1. Field of the Invention
This invention is in the field of load-snatching, material-handling and personnel rescuing apparatus, in which the entire load is scooped up without the need of load cables and hooks. The apparatus utilizes a helicopter as a means of supporting and assisting in the load-lifting and releasing operations. This disclosure with illustrations describes how the task can be performed more precisely and reliably, with less possibility of the apparatus causing injury to the load.
To assist in obtaining this goal of precise performance with less injury to the load, the extensions at the bottom of the lower portions would have pivots and stretchable bands to keep them away from the person to be rescued. The bottoms of the lower portions could have rubber resilient pads, so if accidentially a lower portion should come in contact with an object, less injury would result. Such pads do not exist in previous patents. Hammerheads at its upper portions have hammerheads with magnets capable of being magnetized to either repel or attract one hammerhead toward the other. When rescuing a person, its lower portions are provided with inflatable pillows. For scooping up liquids, hollow hemispheres are substituted for the pillows. No such cargo handling apparatus is known to the applicant having the improvements for harmlessly grabbing a load, such as a person.
2. Description of Prior Art
The inventor is only aware of patents issued under his name that relates to his present invention. U.S. Pat. No. 5,209,538 dated May 11, 1993 and U.S. Pat. No. 5,826,825 dated Oct. 27, 1998 on a similar apparatus has the appearance of the present one but lacks the type of magnets of the present one for its hammerheads for either attraction or repulsion. Then, they do not have pivoted extensions with either stretchable bands or coiled springs to hold them up. In addition, hollow hemispheres are able to scoop up liquids, instead of objects.
Another one by Gabriel, U.S. Pat. No. 4,678,220, dated Jul. 7, 1987, also describes a tongs-like lifting apparatus for loading and unloading containerized cargo, but this one has less relationship to the present one, in that the hammerheads and inflated pillows are missing. Gabriel's other patents, such as U.S. Pat. No. 4,943,099, dated Jul. 24, 1990, relate to cargo hooks with hoist cables that need to hook on to a cable attached to the load to be retrieved. They are incapable of snatching the entire load, such as containerized cargo. Other Gabriel patents are U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,826,825 and 5,868,357.